Memeorandum

February 27, 2010

More Catnip For Libs

Here we go with yet another study demonstrating that liberals are smarter, happier, better ballrom dancers, and really just the bee's knees:

(CNN) -- Political, religious and sexual behaviors may be reflections of intelligence, a new study finds.

Evolutionary
psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and
Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a
large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who
identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs. This applied also to
sexual exclusivity in men, but not in women. The findings will be
published in the March 2010 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly.

Sexual exclusivity? Well, I never thought Bill Clinton was a committed lib anyway.

I'm a blank on his nom de guerre just now, but Nando, long time guest at Talk Left, is looking marvelous with his point that maybe libs who don't like IQ in the context of The Bell Curve shouldn't like it here. But they will!

And do check his link to Pharyngula, where we learn that study author Kanazawa is "the Fenimore Cooper" of sociobiology. This rebuttal of some of his earlier statistical work is quite accessible.

Just to help Kanazawa in his quest for attention let me pull this from the CNN story:

Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or
reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be
paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the
distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case
of danger.

"It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans
are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God
everywhere," Kanazawa said.

Here is a link to the study; I am not a subscriber, so I am stuck at the door with my questions. But here we go:

As noted in the rebuttal cited above, if a researcher re-slices the data often enough, something is likely to emerge as "significant" at a 5% threshold. How many other data possibilities were tested and found uninteresting?

Secondly, what in the world did Kanazawa do about race? I will assert with few links that (a) there is a controversial history of blacks in America lagging on IQ tests, for whatever reason; (b) blacks are probably under-represented among atheists; and (c) based on self-identification, blacks are more likely to describe themselves as conservative than as liberal.

Not having read the paper I have no idea how my unsupported factoids might affect his result, but I think I would want to know before I sang the praises of this study. At a guess, any such effect would not fully account for the 6-11 point differential noted here, but who knows?

[MORE: OK, I will think out loud - suppose we have a population of 40 white atheist libs with an IQ of 100, 40 white religious conservatives with an IQ of 100, and 20 black religious conservatives with a measured IQ of 91, subject to a million caveats about whether that is a meaningful number.

The libs will have an average IQ of 100, as noted; the conservatives will have an average IQ of 97. That is less than 6-11 point gap found in the study. To get to a six point gap, we would need to expect that the black group had an IQ of 82.

In practice,obviously, not all the blacks will be found in one group.]

Obama already informed us of this fact. It's the bitter clingers who have the low IQs.

If someone wants to apply social science survey research techniques to these kinds of questions, the more interesting study would be to find what correlates with individuals who believe the God/no God question is important. For example, Bertrand Russell and James Schall might be classified on different ends of a belief line, but may be close on a "belief/non belief is not important/important" continuum.

IQ measurement, especially within that margin of error thing, is not very instructive.

It would be better to measure occupation within the conservative mindset.

I'm betting the upper-education scale is populated with engineers, bean-counters and bankers. Those sclerotic nerve pathways can be bothersome when new ideas emerge within the social dynamic. Inflexibility of thought pattern is harder to measure but could explain some of the IQ gap for conservatives.

Would this be a good time to request the liberal messiah's SAT and LSAT scores again? I think it would be scientifically interesting to know just how intelligent their hero is, since up until now it's been a blind test.

Anyone who has ever been scuba diving and peered over the edge of underwater cliff down into the murky nothingness and looked left and right and for as far as you could see was this enormousness, and came away not thinking they had looked into the face of the deity is not someone I want to spend time with.

Just browse the comments on a liberal blog. You can't help but be astonished at the intellectual power on display. Catchy title. too: "Why We're Better."

I particularly like this one:

One of the primary differences between liberal and conservative is that liberals see how leveling the societal and economic playing field benefits everyone, whereas conservatives want to maintain class and financial hierarchies, for some reason. All other political beliefs flow from that.

Social science is a pseudo science. Or, more likely science fiction. Kind of like global warming science. This might be a report based on Kanazawa's "hockey stick." Apparently, he was able to "hide the decline."

Anecdotally, you can look at biden and obama and know that liberals are idiots.

"liberals see how leveling the societal and economic playing field benefits everyone"

The phrase "leveling the playing field" seems to mean something different for liberals. One would think it should mean all players get equal opporutinty where "level" refers to same for everyone ... rather than handicapping or adjusting the level for different groups so they get equal outcomes, scores, or chances to win ... regardless of differences in investment of effort, practice, or skill.

IOW the "liberal playing field" is actually a kindergarden playground.

I'm betting this study won't get near the media exposure those showing conservatives are "happier" and "more generous" did a while back. Years later those still feature regularly as "go to" ripostes for blog-comment conservatives.

I've noticed on conservative blogs that number one theme is "we're so much smarter and more moral than those idiotic, dishonest liberals.''

The second most popular theme is: "it's horribly arrogant that liberals go around thinking they're smarter and more moral than conservatives.''

">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect"> The Flynn Effect tells us that the average IQ in a population goes up 3 points per decade, so obviously soon we'll all be as smart as Obama and the Left are now, and the scales will fall from our eyes and we'll understand why destroying the finest health care system in the world while simultaneously destroying the economy is brilliant, and we'll all be clamoring to bring back Air-America at Taxpayer expense.

I'm on my way out now to buy some arugula to help the process along, but the roads are really icy what with all our Global Warming, but not to worry, 'cause if I get rear-ended in an accident I've got Liability Insurance, and hopefully a "Corpsemen" will be nearby to help me out. Geez, I'm getting you know brillianter already.

Evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa at the the London School of Economics and Political Science correlated data on these behaviors with IQ from a large national U.S. sample and found that, on average, people who identified as liberal and atheist had higher IQs.

I'm sure I'm too dumb to understand his brilliant study and that my time is better spent skipping it and doing something else.

The London School of Economics, while surely possessing intelligent faculty, has been a brain trust of socialist economic theory since at least WWII, and probably before that. The leading Brahmins of India (the Nehru family, among others), obtained parts of their education their. Which helps explain the economic plight of India for years after independence.
The research would be interesting to look at, but to this simple soul, it sounds like a forgone conclusion in search of causes. This type of backward reasoning is pretty typical in some of the weaker social sciences.

In the past, people wanted to prove their "virtue", or moral qualities to gain political power. This was sometimes a chimera, as many "moral" people were anything but. The new virtue, is, of course, IQ (not withstanding the trashing of the book, "The Bell Curve"), especially when it vindicates the viewpoint of progressive thinkers. Whatever progressive thinkers are.

I thought the innate intellectual superiority of liberals was front and center at the Blair House meeting Thursday.

So intellect is now measured anecdotes rather than facts? Now I get it.

BTW just to illustrate their superior liberal intellect, I happened on to firedoglake during the summit, and the blogger was so excited about those fabulous liberal anecdotes she could barely contain herself. Who needs facts?

My experience is that liberals are constantly frustrated and irritated because nobody will do what they want. Their focus is always on what others "should" be doing. They think up idea after great idea, and they want the rest of us to just DO IT. My Northern Virginia neighborhood is full of liberal busybodies.
The funny thing is that the MSM paints Christians as the group one needs to fear because they will force everyone to live a certain way....but it is the liberals that do it. The phrase "mind your own business" comes to mind a lot.

I do think American conservatives get a bad rap for being stupid. I know plenty of brilliant conservatives (personally and by reputation) and plenty of moronic liberals, so the idea that one side of the ideological spectrum has all the brains just doesn't wash.

Conservatives got the reputation for stupidity because ``low-information'' conservatives tend to be very loud in the public sphere and have created a cottage industry of endless self-pity, inflamed paranoia, wingnut welfare, etc. By contrast, smart conservatives tend to shy away from the public sphere, eschewing politics and intellectualizing for making money, taking care of their family and accumulating real power.

The opposite holds for liberals. The smartest liberals tend to be among the loudest ones. Their voices are more likely to be front and center in the public sphere. So ''low-information'' liberals tend to get pushed out of the public sphere by the smarter ones. Also, uninformed liberals are more likely to take a "mellow" attitude toward those who disagree with them politically, so are less likely get loud in public than their conservative counterparts are. They tend to seek mellowness and harmony a little more.

The problem lies where the capstones of modern intellectualism lie, matt delved into some of this, Darwin, introduced randomness into the biological sciences, Marz undermined economic relations, Freud, challenged the basis for morality. The other philosophers like Kierkegaard and later Sartre, effectively painted life as meaningless, Nietsche proclaim"God is Dead" not in triumph, but in sorrow, he saw the bloodshed such a transition would bring. If life is indeed meaningless, what is the point of being good, liberals haven't yet
come up with a good answer for that

"Religion, the current theory goes, did not help people survive or reproduce necessarily, but goes along the lines of helping people to be paranoid, Kanazawa said. Assuming that, for example, a noise in the distance is a signal of a threat helped early humans to prepare in case of danger.

"It helps life to be paranoid, and because humans are paranoid, they become more religious, and they see the hands of God everywhere," Kanazawa said."

.

This guy comes across as an idiot. Current theory is far far more sophisticated:

I don't know what the "current theory" is, but I do think Kanazawa is unnecessarily inflammatory in presenting of a widely understood phenomenon.

Religion indeed contributes to survival by creating a framework for accessing sub-conscious knowledge. In some ways, the sub-conscious brain is far more powerful tool -- more rational and more capable of memorizing raw data -- than our conscious mind.

But we can only directly access our subconscious through the experience of intuition. And without some belief in the supernatural, it's much more difficult to accept intuition as anything other than irrational imaginings.

Prayer, meditation and, even, faith in the hereafter have offered socially acceptable avenues for individuals to escape domination by the conscious mind and let their sub-conscious contribute more to their understanding and analysis of day to day life.

If you subscribed to a political philosophy that was composed only of one or two shallow and baseless dogmas and found yourself living in a society of people who embraced a rich tradition of political beliefs and values replete with ancient, richly detailed and robustly argued grounds, you would find yourself with a choice: abandon your beliefs or attempt to explain away the beliefs of others as based on economic forces, stupidity or poor character. For you would have no hope of arguing your case.

The concept of good can't even be defined outside of an ultimate truth, or standard.

If there is no God...then anything goes. Good or bad, right or wrong,...even smart or dumb is all up to whatever each individual thinks. If you think I'm wrong...well who cares, who can say since there is no absolute truth.

problem with screwing his, given the evidence that neither my girlfriend (assuming it was not rape) nor my friend believe in monogamy.(We can of course imagine a scenario in which both parties were apologetic, considered it an accident, ie recognized the moral problem etc. in which case I would have a moral problem sleeping with my friend's girlfriend.) Like I said, it's simple and requires no unicorns, holy spirits or crucifixions

Janet: I'd flip that around. If God sets the standard, then man can do anything, as long as he convinces himself that God says it's ok. From the Inquisition to the Holocaust to 9/11, we can see where that leads.
And why do we need God to assume "absolute truth" exists? Truth is a rational construct, not a supernatural one. We only need God when we want something other than truth as the measure.

Evolutionary psychology is even worse. It's a euphemism for a bunch of guys sitting around getting paid to speculate about the good old cavemen days. Almost anybody here could make up more plausible shit than they do.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed, but the subjects of almost all these liberal/conservative studies are students, otherwise known as callow youths.

man can do anything, as long as he convinces himself that God says it's ok

Your statement supports MY contention.
Mankind doesn't get to make up who God is. That mankind has and does make up gods to justify their actions is true though.
I was talking about God...I AM...Jehovah.

JM Hanes writes: ''you've essentially just said you have no moral code of your own. If a guy screws your girlfriend, you lower your standards accordingly.''

I think you misunderstood, JM. My moral code or "standard" permits having sex with someone other than my girlfriend under certain circumstances, so when those circumstances present themselves, I'm not changing my morals, I'm fulfilling them.

Sexual fidelity, in my view, is a matter of honesty, not a supernatural commandment from God.

I would not betray my friend or my girlfriend by having sex outside their trust. Nor would I, for example, set up a joint bank account with another woman, if that would violate any agreement with my girlfriend. The principle is the same.

But in the hypothetical example, both my friend and my girlfriend have demonstrated beyond doubt that they do not consider sex outside monogamy a betrayal, except of course, for the caveat I explained.

Hanes demonstrates an important difference between people who believe their morality is dictated by God and those who don't.

For Hanes, apparently, sexual fidelity is simply a commandment from God, without which, we would have no reason not so screw our friend's girlfriend.

Or maybe I have that wrong. Tell us, Hanes, if God said it was OK to screw your friend's girlfriend, would you have any reason not to do it?

Bunkbuster: I'm "good" out of empathy. I don't screw my friend's girlfriend, because I wouldn't want him to screw mine.
---------------------------------------
Excuse the language please, but
Given that statement, since I don't mind other men screwing my girlfriend, I get to screw yours. Surely you can empathize with me?

I take it you don't eat meat, since I am sure you empathize with the poor chicken, cow, etc. that didn't want to be eaten (That is why they run from pray your know).

By the way, I don't recall God ever saying anything about screwing someone else girlfriend, perhaps you can provide a reference?

What you describe (you don't do things for fear someone will do the same to you) is not 'empathy'. Empathy means you understand your friends emotions about having his girlfriend cheat and the betrayal that would entail. Your feeling is one of fear of retribution, not empathy.

BB ""Hanes demonstrates an important difference between people who believe their morality is dictated by God and those who don't.""

No, I believe he demonstrated the difference between having his own internal moral code and your situational ethics.

You clearly stated that you don't have sex with your friends girlfriend, ONLY up to the point he doesn't have sex with your girlfriend - once he passes that point, your situational ethic says its now OK for your to have sex with his girlfrind, while Hanes is saying, having an actual moral code means he still wouldn't have sex with his friends girlfriend because he has beliefs beyond the current situation, while you do not. It doesn't take God to figure that out.

If my friend is screwing my girlfriend, he's demonstrating that fidelity is not an issue for him and the same for my girlfriend. Therefore, I can screw his girlfriend without violating his trust or my girlfriend's.

I would normally choose not to screw his girlfriend out of empathy for his feelings and because it wouldn't be honest as I don't call someone my girlfriend unless there is a presumption of monogamy. But my girlfriends choice to sleep with my friend demonstrates that there is no presumption of monogamy, so I can then screw someone else without hurting her feelings or violating her trust. (Save for the caveat I explained on my initial post.)

As for verifying my moral code: I consider it self-evident, even mathematical. Reflexivity, reciprocity. It's simple and underlies all morality.

Pops writes: ``since I don't mind other men screwing my girlfriend, I get to screw yours.''
No, because I haven't demonstrated to you that I don't fidelity is unimportant to me. If I screwed your wife first, then of course, you would "get" to screw mine, provided she obliged.

It's either odd, telling or both that you'd misunderstand the concept of reciprocity. I wonder if this is representative of conservatives, or just Pops...

Son, look at it this way; by your infantile method of trying to label a consistent conservative position, basically creating strawmen and lighting them on fire, you create for yourself a tactically disastrous position. While it is easy to construct a counter-argument to each of your mistaken generalizations about conservatives, it is even easier to trash the jejeune maunderings, of you the individual, the specific and foolish progressive.
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What separates liberals and conservatives from what I can tell is conservatives operate on the world as it is, and liberals operate on the world as they think it should be. If only all people were perfect, liberal ideology would work.

BB, if I were you I'd find out what your "girlfriend" was doing on Saturday night since you spent the entire night here.

"What separates liberals and conservatives from what I can tell is conservatives operate on the world as it is, and liberals operate on the world as they think it should be. If only all people were perfect, liberal ideology would work."

Well said Jane. Liberals leave out true human nature...so their ideas must be tweeked and multiplied endlessly because utopia is not working out as they thought it would.

For anyone interested in the thoughts of a serious man challenging belief in the Almighty, see LUN.

Although Russell's essay focuses on a critique of Christianity, the essay is a worthwhile read for any believer interested in a thoughful response from the other side, and for any non-believer who would like to move beyond the laughable talking point thinking all too characteristic of today's secular movement.

It's either odd, telling or both that you'd misunderstand the concept of reciprocity. I wonder if this is representative of conservatives, or just Pops...

I can't speak for Pops, but perhaps he does understand it perfectly well and just doesn't subscribe to it.

Standards are just that - standards. They don't change according to situation. If it is not okay to sleep with your friend's girlfriend, then it is not OK regardless of what your friend is doing with your girlfriend. The morality of one behavior is not dependent on the existence of another.

This is truly easy for most people to understand.

Let me dumb it down for a smart liberal like you: is the only reason you don't murder your friend's girlfriend because he hasn't murdered yours?

So let me get this straight because I'm confused. Is it okay for your girlfriend to sleep with her neighbor and not tell you regardless of the arrangement between you and your best friend? Does her "morality" count in your equation, or is she just a prop for yours?

So let me get this straight because I'm confused. Is it okay for your girlfriend to sleep with her neighbor and not tell you regardless of the arrangement between you and your best friend? Does her "morality" count in your equation, or is she just a prop for yours?